New Delhi: The CBI on Thursday carried out searches at various ministries and offices of private firms in the national capital in the corporate espionage case.It has reportedly recovered Rs 60 lakh in cash in these searches from the residence of a chartered accountant in Delhi.

The raids were conducted in six places in Delhi and Mumbai today to investigate the alleged sale of information by government officials.The probe by the CBI is separate from the investigation being carried out by the Delhi police regarding alleged sale of information by government officials.

As per reports the new case relates to documents leaked from Union Finance Ministry.Reports also said that apart from cash, the CBI has also recovered several documents.Delhi Police had, on February 20, arrested the five corporate executives from top energy firms alleging that they used to procure documents from other accused Lalta Prasad and Rakesh, and they used to pay them.

These documents were then supplied to the companies by these officials to benefit the firm, the police had said.Five days later, Virender Kumar, a Defence Ministry staff member, was arrested for allegedly stealing an identity card of an auditor at Indian Defence Accounts Service and providing the same to one of the accused, Lalta Prasad, in the case.

Besides them, the police had also arrested Rakesh Kumar, Prayas Jain, Shantanu Saikia, Ishwar Singh, Asharam and Rajkumar Chaubey, who are also in judicial custody.

In a separate FIR, the police had arrested three others – Lokesh Sharma, an employee of a Noida-based consultancy firm, Jitender Nagpal, PS to Joint Secretary in Forest and Environment Ministry and Vipan Kumar, PA to a UPSC member- and were sent to judicial custody till March 17.

A total of 17 people have been arrested so far in connection with the two FIRs by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police.